“Size less than medium; shape fusiform, rather conoidal; spire turriculated, not very elongated, with obtuse apex, consisting of seven or eight gyrations which are at first feebly convex and smooth, separated by deep sutures, their height equal to two-fifth of their width; at about the penultimate whorl, numerous ribs make their appearance: they are narrow, very close-set, scarcely curvilinear, and the intervals between them are, at first, smooth. Body-whorl occupying nearly two-third of the total height, feebly ventricose, oval at its base, ornamented like the preceding whorl with the addition of very fine spiral striations in the intervals between the axial ribs, best seen in the neighborhood of the aliform expansion, on whose outer surface they expand fanwise; on the base they somewhat abruptly give place to spiral cords crossing the axial folds which persist as far as the neck. Aperture obliquely elongate, rather narrow, terminated posteriorly by a groove and anteriorly by a beak adjacent to an inflated rostrum; outer lip thickened and expanded, with a denticulated crest along its margin, bent in front and to the left of the axis, posteriorly produced up to the apex of the spire which it covers; columella excavated, with a callous margin almost detached, and posteriorly joined on to the opposite lip.”

Comments by Cossmann & Pissarro, 1909, p. 48:

“Comparison with other species. - D’Archiac and Haime’s figures represent incomplete specimens. It is by means of the principal character mentioned by these authors, the obliteration of the ribs on completely smooth early whorls, that we have been able to refer to this species, the remarkable neotype which we have figured. The elegant lattice of spiral threads observable on the body-whorl of this neotype, is invisible on the other incomplete specimen which, in every other way resembles those figured by d’Archiac and Haime. R. fusoides is easily distinguished from R. fissurella, by its smooth early whorls, its much more crowded ribs, and its spiral striations. Its depressed conoidal shape, its spiral striations, and the serrated crest of its outer lip, distinguish it from R. Prestwichi. We feel inclined to think that R. Jamesoni, d’Archiac and Haime, in a more complete specimen of R. fusoides, in which the ribs only begin to appear on the ventral surface of the body-whorl. There does not seem to be much need of a distinct name for this variety.”